A few years back, when then presidential candidate Barack Obama was running for office, a political commentator declared that he was a ‘human Rorschach test.’ Meaning that your view of him as a “minority” candidate said more about you and your views on race than about Mr. Obama. Like many terms coined in the bubble surrounding the privileged class who live in Washington, D.C., it took off and is now mainstreamed. To me, it is just another way of saying that everything is relative; we all have our own unique perspective based on our experiences; glass half-full or half-empty sort of thing.

This preamble leads me to talk about living as a foreigner in Kingston. Jamaicans, of course, ask me and my fellow volunteers how we like it here. I often say I love it- and most Jamaicans laugh and ask me what I love about it. Other volunteers, of course, say different things. I know some of us struggle with some aspects that aren’t so pleasant and some of us are energized by these very aspects. Which brings me to something I notice every day on my way to work. I walk through an abandoned lot. It is now home to a rusty flatbed truck and piles of garbage and gravel. But out of these piles grow these gorgeous fuschia flowers.There is an entire niche of academia devoted to these ‘urban weeds’- plants that thrive in the most unlikeliest of environments. It is a beautiful concept, if you think about it.

But back to here in Kingston. Depending on my mood, some days I see the garbage and the ugliness it represents, some days I see the flowers and their beauty and resilience, and some days I see both. And then some days I take the meta view and write a post like this, where I am clearly thinking too much. What do you think you would see? There is no doubt that garbage is a problem here, or rather, a lack of disposal facilities and an unwillingness amongst people to locate those that do exist. But there is also an abundance of beauty, both physical and in the spirit of the people who live here.